Druid and boon corruption

[anduriell.6280]

Druid should have limited access to boon corruption. Thinking about it even as in the lore Druids weren't supposed to be just "healers" but a profession dedicated to keep the natural balance. Also within the life cycle there is not only grow but decay.Which sometimes brings down to destroy some aspects which makes a situation unbalanced.

My proposal:

• Right now the druid direct damage in some skills (natural convergence, staff) and other skills with conditions (ancient seeds, vine surge ) which is no coherent and makes a nightmare build for anything other than troll build based in gimmicks.
• This change would be additional to the needed changes to remove the abusive sustain this class have as right now.Changes:
• Avatar Skill Natural convergence:
• Trait Ancient Seeds is moved to core ranger. New trait in it's place Natural Balance. With Cosmic Ray it may need an ICD but that skill has such small radius and cast delay i don't think it would be an issue except on static targets.

Another underisable side effect: Changes to trait Grace of Land actually had the undesired effect to remove classes which provided might as the Druid can excel at that role now. To revert that side effect without taxing the servers with the old mechanich (charges in low duration) a new mechanic might be implemented.

• Grace of the Land

This actually rework the druid to make it desirable as another limited source of boon corruption. As such may have use in wvw squads and also could have a soft counter against heavy boon classes. And better yet increase the builds available without changing much of how the damage is dealt.

This with some reorganisation in the trait line commented on another threads (to remove the dreadful combo of druidic clarity + celestial shadow ) should make the druid more interesting to play with and against to.

What do you think?

[Xaylin.1860]

Phew...

Personally, I don't want Boon corrupts on Druid. First, I don't agree it does fit the theme. If you're looking for 'Natural Balance', it would neutralize, not corrupt. The counter part would also mean that you should have less boons yourself. Second, Druids really don't need more tools for PvP to stall or counter even more builds - namely any build which utilizes or requires Boons to excel. Just no.

@anduriell.6280 said:

Another underisable side effect: Changes to trait Grace of Land actually had the undesired effect to remove classes which provided might as the Druid can excel at that role now. To revert that side effect without taxing the servers with the old mechanich (charges in low duration) a new mechanic might be implemented.

I do like your trait idea in a vacuum. But I feel like you're not correctly assessing the situation. The change to Grace of the Land was the right thing to do because it took away yet another unique buff which basically required a specific class with a specific trait to be part of a meta composition. I'd rather not see a new unique buff on Druids (or Rangers). Since PoF, there are plenty of classes that can provide a sufficient amount of Might to a group. If you had a good mix of classes in a raid, you might not even need a dedicated Might stacker. Of course, having it done by 1 single class is waaaaay more convenient (and from an equipment statpoint: more efficient). Nothing to argue about that. But that's not necessarily the reason why Druids currently reign supreme when it comes to Might in raids.

Druids aren't preferred because they're best at stacking Might by default (stack size, duration). There are several reasons other classes can't compete. First, as already said, stacking Might on Druids is stupidly easy and doesn't influence their other duties that much - at least in a support set up. Second, they still provide other unique buffs (e.g. Frost Spirit, Spotter). Third, in the current state there is close to no reason for a Druid to pick any other GM trait. Fourth, but not least: Not every potential Might stacker can provide boons to 10 targets.

All this aside, I don't see the point in taking away the role of a Might stacker from Druids. Why? What for? Your suggestion let's other classes stack Might. Sure. But Druids remain mandatory because of their unique buffs anyway. You're just shifting tasks. One DPS will likely be replaced or altered to stack Might. It might have to be mirrored in the second raid group which might actually decrease build diversity.

Things I'd prefer with respective to Might stacking:

• Buff other Might stackers (PvE only, preferably target cap increases)
• Slightly nerf Might stacking on Druids for raid scenarios (either decrease target cap if cap on others isn't increased or reduce stack size)
• Rework Lingering Light to provide an attractive alternative for GotL for support builds

[Durzlla.6295]

I would love boon REMOVAL to be even accessible to ranger/Druid and if we go with how Druids (and rangers) were in GW1 it’d fit very well, since a lot of spirits were all about preventing or removing enchantments (boons) and rangers had several skills that were really good, but required you to have no enchantments on you. And seeing as how one of Druids traits are even named after one of these skills (Natural Stride) it’d be fitting imo.

That being said, Boon CORRUPTION is something we absolutely should not have, Druids would not be corrupting the boons, they’d be removing them, and if we were to go with that sort of theme I’d think Druid should be removing boons from themselves too and would be all about being completely boonless for stronger effects.

Your idea for Grace of the Land is terrible though, you’d literally be trading might stacking for some other unique buff for Druid which would put us right back to where we started before they changed it so it’d be less mandatory to bring Druid.

What I’d do instead is make it so every Avatar State skill removes boons from The Druid (and enemies) on each cast, then they could make Grace of the Land into some huge self buff for the Druid when you’re completely boonless, and change Lingering Light into something like whenever you lose a boon (through any means) you gain some stacking buff for a few seconds as compensation.

This would require a total balance overhaul though and I don’t think it’d happen, although I do think it’d be a cool theme.